I was unfamiliar with Ice Nine Kills until my son started talking about them. Then his friend invited him to see a show at the Starland Ballroom on May 3 (Ice Nine Kills was not headlining–the lineup was Falling In Reverse, Ice Nine Kills, From Ashes to New and New Years Day). So I was a little bummed that he didn’t go to his first club show with me, but it’s much cooler that he went with his friend. He loved the show.

So when they announced that they were playing at TLA and headlining the Octane Accelerator Tour (a Sirius XM thing), I made sure we got tickets (even though it was a Monday night).

The show was (I’m exhausted just thinking about it) FIVE bands and started at 6PM (!).

The lineup was Ice Nine Kills, Fit For A King, Light The Torch, Make Them Suffer, & Awake At Last.

Since it was a Monday night, I knew it would be really hard to get there for the first band, so we decided we would assume we’d miss Awake at Last. Then on November 5th, Make Them Suffer (who are Australian) announced:

Unfortunately we have had some serious setbacks with immigration, and were unable to secure the visas we needed in time for these shows.

TLA said the show would go on at the same time which was great for us since it meant we would get home about 30 minutes earlier. I also figured I’d take my son for some good ol’ Philly cheese steaks before the show since Jim’s is just a few doors down.

We enjoyed out cheese steaks quite a lot and as we walked past the theater I asked the guy at the door which band was on. He said the second band was on and since we had plenty of time, we decided to go to Atomic City Comics (which is a wonderful store).

We headed back to TLA figuring we’d be in the middle of Fit for a King. But as we walked in, they were between bands. The woman at the merch table said that ice Nine Kills was up in ten minutes! We’d missed all of the opening bands! (more…)

In honor of Halloween, these Ghost Box stories will be attached to a recent Phish Halloween show [with quoted material from various reviews].

Known for dawning musical costumes to celebrate [Halloween], Phish broke with tradition last year to offer a set of original music. The Phish Bill read that Phish’s musical costume would be a 1964 Disney album of sound effects – Chilling, Thrilling Sounds Of The Haunted House. But it wasn’t a cover set. Phish played original music set amongst an incredibly psychedelic, theatrical graveyard stage accentuated by zombie dancers and a ghoulish MC. At the start of the set, the stage was cleared before a graveyard came to the foreground. Smoke filled the air, zombie dancers appeared, and music filled the venue. A haunted house was brought to the front of the stage, which eventually exploded, and all four-band members appeared, dressed in white like zombies.

“The Unsafe Bridge” was Phish’s version of a Spaghetti Western soundtrack with elements of Genesis and The Beatles worked in. While the band played these songs, lasers and other effects not usually seen at a Phish show were added to the insane spectacle.

This song definitely a spaghetti western vibe from Mike and some appropriate piano from Page. Trey plays some simple guitar melodies. And then a pretty solo.

This piece is nicely catchy but also really short at only 3 minutes. I could have listened to this one for longer.

This is a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening) that contains 11 stories for Halloween. It is lovingly described thusly:

A collection of chilly, spooky, hair-raising-y stories to get you in that Hallowe’en spirit, edited and introduced by comedian and horror aficionado Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, on the inside cover, one “window” of the 11 boxes is “folded.” I am taking that as a suggested order.

This story started in an amusing way–kids returning from a 2 AM screening of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre stop at a convenience store to but some alcohol. It’s Macklin and his friend Whitey (who is Native American–real name is White Feather). At the store, the clerk is acting really weird, just repeating “Please, thank you, sorry” and seeming to be really out of it.

They recognize him as Juano, a guy they know from another store, but he seems to have really hit the skids as they say. (more…)